So some weeks ago we got the introductory papers on our last project for this semester. It is quite the opposite of the one with the GateChair. Then we had to focus on relaxation, now we focus on movement. The guidelines are quite strict we are to design a product for use in the kitchen, which solves a certain activity by only requiring physical power to use. So no displays, no engines, no fun.. 😉 Or so you would think.

The main difference is that we are being guided by not one, not two but three staff members from LNU. They take turns giving us feedback in groups of two.

This monday 11-04-11 we had to present how far we had come(the actual project lasts until the end of may). For this purpose I created a keynote – of course – and a nice apple-esque film showing my user testing. Yea user testing is one of the “new” things they introduced this project around. The interesting thing is that most of my fellows tested their activities rather then their products. E.g.: How do people crush fruit, cut onion,…

I chose to build a prototype and test the actual workings of my product instead. I did receive some critique about only testing one product and thus giving my subjects nothing to compare to. But I am unsure about this being a valid issue. Then again we never really learned how to do user tests so I could be totally wrong here.

My product is a dispenser, in my project outline I started wanting to help blind people measure things, but it got rejected due to me “not being able to find enough blind people to test”. This was an assumption on the LNU staff’s part and not really based on any merits. But I can appreciate the difficulty of finding a large enough test group. So i changed the outline twice and ended up with something like this: